


too tempting not to touch

by helenecixous



Category: Big Little Lies (TV), Big Little Lies - Liane Moriarty
Genre: F/F, good luck at the golden globes tonight lads, remember big little lies, this is the most pretentious shit i've ever written
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-07
Updated: 2018-01-07
Packaged: 2019-03-01 19:31:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13301709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helenecixous/pseuds/helenecixous
Summary: there's a lot that's gone wrong in your life, and a lot that's gone right. not as much, perhaps, but a lot. you thought that you'd never be able to find shelter, that you'd hurt with every breath that you took. but then came bonnie, and she crafted solace from seawater.





	too tempting not to touch

**Author's Note:**

> listen to various storms & saints while reading this i think it's important

Sometimes the only thing that can calm you is the ocean. You recognise the irony of that, you know that the sound of the waves crashing and the quiet destruction should make you remember that night, but you’d moved to Monterey, and how can the beach remind you of something you will never forget? How can it bring Perry back to the forefront of your mind when he is never not there? Never not there, unless you are walking along the seafront, feeling the sand and the water between your toes, your hair whipping around in the wind. And sure, sometimes when you’re with Ziggy, or Bonnie, or Madeline, or Renata, or Celeste, that particular train of thought delays but not for very long. Never for very long. The ocean and its impersonal roar is sometimes the only thing that you trust, the only thing that never asks questions, the only thing that doesn’t feel for you, and you love it for that. You love it for freezing your toes and biting your ankles and drowning the thoughts that drown you, and after Perry’s death you’d found yourself visiting more often, even as the weather got colder and the days got shorter and the waves got louder. You try to go there every day now, for at least an hour, and most of the time you don’t run, but you won’t sit. You walk for miles and miles, thinking of the gulls and of nothing and of your friends and of Ziggy and of yourself. But mostly nothing, and sometimes you think of Bonnie.

There’s something about her that does something to you, that calms you, that fills you up with a warm  _ something  _ that physically manifests itself in your chest and crushes your lungs, that leaves you breathless and giddy and desperate for a definition. The way she looks at you, the way she smiles, the way she rolls her eyes at Madeline and Renata’s bickering, the way she  _ exists _ is something you can’t stop thinking about. At first you thought it was just that you didn’t understand her - you didn’t understand the meditation and the yoga and the green tea and the loose clothes she wears, and then you thought it was solidarity, that you both had been hurt in a way that no person should ever be hurt, but when you hadn’t become quietly obsessed with Celeste too, you had to rule that one out. And then you thought it was stemming from the fact that it was  _ her  _ hands that killed him, her hands that had taken him out of your life forever, but it wasn’t. You know, although you won’t admit it even to yourself, that it’s probably more to do with how Ziggy loves her, with how she loves Ziggy, and the lingering smiles and the soft touches she bestows on you that she doesn’t seem to give to the others.

And when your phone had woken you up one morning at three o’clock and she’d been crying, soft and quiet and apologetic, you’d been gripped by a kind of heartbreak you’d never experienced. A new surge of hatred for Perry had been born that night, as she explained to you that she hadn’t wanted to wake Nathan because he wouldn’t even try to understand, but she can’t live with the blood on her hands, no matter who it had belonged to. You had talked to her for hours, and something nameless had happened. From then, you became each other’s first and only port of call, and when she rang you one evening and told you that she’d walked out on Nathan for reasons she wouldn’t give you, the only visceral emotion you’d felt had been hope, and right after that there had been a hefty amount of guilt. You came to anticipate her calls, you came to dial her number without thought, you came to expecting and looking forward to seeing her, and if the others had noticed that she is suddenly all you talk about, they’d not mentioned it.

Madeline talks about her now too - can talk about her and to her without looking like she’d eaten a particularly sour lemon - and the two of them had become firm friends. They’d staged an intervention together when they’d caught you sneaking off for a cigarette (Bonnie had been  _ mortally  _ offended, and Madeline seemed to just find Bonnie’s quiet rage funny and tagged along for the ride), and sometimes you’re invited along when they both take Chloe out shopping, or for coffee, and those days always turn out to be the best days. You get to watch the three of them try on the ugliest clothes they can find for each other, and you get to hear them trash talk Nathan - a conversation you’ve always wanted to join in with but never felt entitled to - and you get to watch Bonnie become herself again, become lighter and happier in a way that you recognise because you’re sure they watch the same thing happening to you.

Perry’s been dead for a year, and Nathan’s been gone for six months when Bonnie first comes with you to the beach. Neither of you talk much, and when she takes your hands, laughing, and pulls you into the water you follow her willingly, captivated by her eyes and her smile and the way her cotton cardigan floats around her waist, the way the tips of her hair caress the surface of the water, and the way she looks against the grey skies and the dark water. You gasp as you wade in and your jeans instantly darken, and you think that when you have to walk home you’ll both regret this, but right now she’s laughing and it isn’t strained at all, and so are you and you feel the laugh in your bones for the first time in years. You’re shivering and so is she, but she’s holding your hands and together you rock with the waves that crash into you, somewhere there’s a cry of a seagull, and even though you’re only waist deep you feel like you’re in the middle of the ocean with her, that there isn’t another human being for miles and miles, that you could tread water and laugh breathlessly with her forever.

For a second there’s a split in the thick clouds and a ray of sunlight rushes down to earth, and everything in that moment is perfect; the cold of the water and the brightness of Bonnie’s smile, and the clouds and the sun. You think of Ziggy and wish that you’d brought him along as she is pushed closer to you by the waves and she stumbles and you catch her, and then you think that it’s almost as though the universe is nudging you toward some kind of inevitable, and then you laugh because that’s not a thought you would have had before you met her.

“Jane,” she says softly, and then you realise that your hand is cupping her jaw gently, and you feel like you’ve been caught by the tide and swept up into the swirling, dark, foamy current. You watch the way she is watching you (you can’t watch anything else) and you’re so, so cold, and you could be struggling for breath and your heart could be racing, pounding in your chest, but all you can feel is her hand clutching yours, and her other that somehow made its way to your hip.

When you kiss her she tastes like seasalt and something raw and exposed and something warmer than anything you’ve ever felt. Her wet hands are in your hair and you cling to her, wrapped around her, surrounded by the darkness of the water and the rhythm of the universe, the thrum of its heartbeat, and you think that you are holding the universe’s very heart in your arms, you are holding her and sharing her warmth and you are kissing her and she is kissing you and everything is still.


End file.
